[fennecbutt]

To be fair, I've thought about this sometimes too. Like, I contribute to technology myself, but in a very minimal way. And most people don't at all, they consume. But there are a golden few in the world who are doing _everything_.

For example how many people in the world actually know how to build an EUV machine like ASML's one? How many people understand the absolute forefront of integrated circuit design? Maybe like, 1-2 dozen people at most?

It's a pretty crazy thought. And I bet none of those guys are making as much bank as the suited executives above them.

[agentultra]

Exactly. A few people have attempted fabricating simple 8-bit CPUs in their garage but the yields are low without a clean room and it still requires an incredible amount of technology to get started. A good amount of how to set up a garage fabrication lab is probably available through bits of print media, if we're lucky... but recreating a garage from scratch by finding all of that information would be quite the feat.